History of Presbyterianism

of Heaven,” and the “Kingdom of God.” “Thou art Peter,” said our Lord to Simon, son of Jonas, “and upon this rock will I build my church, and I will give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven.” Here the Church and the Kingdom of heaven must be considered as synonymous terms; and the church being thus called “a Kingdom” and “the Kingdom of Heaven” shows very plainly that it is a regularly established society, an essentially spiritual society, and one, furthermore, distinct from all other societies. The sacred thing is also plain from the church being called the “Dominion of Christ,” “and in the days of these Kings shall the God of heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never be destroyed, and the Kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and con— sume all those Kingdoms and it shall stand for- ever.” And there was given him dominion and glory and a Kingdom, that all people and nations and languages should serve him. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion which shall not pass away.” Again the church is called the “House” and the “Household of God,” the “Temple of God,” the “Body of Christ,” all of which and similar descrip- tions of the church distinctly show that it is em- phatically a spiritual church or society of which all individual believers, as well as all particular churches or congregations, are parts and parcels, in- corporated into one body of which the Lord Jesus Christ is himself the Supreme Head. “"0 must rc- member that in direct allusion to the Lord Jesus

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